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2012 State of the Union: 5 things Obama didn't say

The president avoided a few sensitive subjects Tuesday night. | Jay Westcott/POLITICO

The White House’s initial announcement that it opposed the bills aimed at cracking down at piracy of movies, TV shows and computer software splits elements of the Democratic base: Hollywood and other content providers were aghast at the administration’s move, while tech companies like Google and many Internet activists celebrated. The White House’s intervention created huge buzz and was widely discussed during online protests organized last week.

But in the State of the Union, the furthest he’d go was an oblique reference in a laundry list of complaints about China, declaring, “It’s not right when another country lets our movies, music, and software be pirated.”

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In both 2010 and 2011, Obama spoke of a “freeze” on domestic spending. “This freeze will require painful cuts,” he warned last year, adding that he’d already frozen the salaries of federal employees.

That was gone from the speech this year. (He also did not mention that he’s now proposing for a half-percent pay hike — a gesture that could tamp down the ire of government-worker unions.)

Obama did note that he’d “agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings,” but he didn’t refer to capping domestic spending. He mentioned “reforms” to “rein in the long term costs” of popular programs like Medicare and Social Security.

That’s all part of the program put forward by the Bipartisan Debt Commission led by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, derided by liberals as the cat food commission. The commission made it into the last two State of the Union speeches. Tuesday, Obama broke the streak.

So much for the direct plea of Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) — an Obama critic and Mitt Romney endorser — last weekend.

“He could finally embrace Simpson-Bowles,” Christie said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “That would surprise the nation if he did it, and I think it would show great leadership if the president was willing to do it.”

The Sputnik moment

Last year, the president called for “our generation’s Sputnik moment” — a broad range of research and development investments he grouped under a grand call to action.

Tuesday’s speech was more down to earth. White House advisers seem to have concluded that the public is in no mood for discussion of grandiose government undertakings or massive government spending programs. Even high speed rail, a pet project of Vice President Joe Biden, “high-speed rail,” was left out this year.

And Obama managed only a single, brief reprise of his kitschy “win the future” theme from last year’s address. “Don’t let other countries win the race for the future,” the president said Tuesday night — in passing.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the name of the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Anyone who has closely or even cursorily followed the actions, declarations, and proposals of candidate Barack Hussein Obama and the enacted socio-economic policies of the Obama presidency has to be aware that he represents the greatest threat to domestic and international tranquility in the history of the United States.

Obama’s slip-of-the-lip to Joe the Plumber in 2008 that his intent was to “share the wealth” should have alerted Americans to his radical Marxist inclinations, but it didn’t.

His repeated statements pitting rich against the poor, the haves against those who haven’t, should have informed the electorate that he was launching class warfare, but they didn’t.

His Justice Department’s black racist decisions and his demeaning of white Americans should have shown he was fostering racial antagonisms and pitting race against race, but they didn’t.

His foisting of Obamacare on the American people, a socialistic scheme designed to kill off the sick and elderly patterned on Britain’s failed NHS, should have proven he was far more committed to his legacy than to the well-being of Americans, but it didn’t.

His enthusiastic support for the revolutionist Occupy movement intent on subverting the capitalist system that has made America great should have been a giveaway that Obama wasn’t a real American, but it didn’t.

None of that evidence was sufficient to convince Obama idolators who still mindlessly subscribed to their illusion of Barack was their dream rather than what he is, a nightmare and a fraud.

The president’s designated apologist, Press Secretary Jay Carney, was hit with an easy question at his Monday press briefing, a simple query as to whether a picture of Saul Alinsky hangs in the White House. The reporter was motivated to ask since Newt Gingrich has reasonably claimed Obama’s vision comes from the man who coined the term, “community organizer,” Saul David Alinsky.

Amid titters, Carney scoffed, waffled, defended his boss’s background as a Chicago “community organizer,” and replied without answering the qustion, ”I’ll just leave it at that.”

See Carney dance around Saul Alinsky here http://bit.ly/y0KKJn.

I doubt there’s a framed portrait of Alinsky in the executive mansion. There would be no need since Alinsky extremist socialism is firmly embedded in this president’s psyche and philosophy so who needs a picture?

Alinsky never became a registered Communist. He was so full of chutzpa that he refused to be bound by Communism’s “doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated” rigidity. Instead, he blazed his own trail of doctrinaire, humorless, intellectually constipated independence that served to supplement Communism’s and which, if anything, was more radical.

He virtually invented the job of community organizer, a euphemism for a rabble-rouser engaged in stirring social discontent and societal revolution and developed that profession on the streets of Chicago, the same streets on which his disciple Obama later practiced Alinskyite tactics.

As Linn and Ari Armstrong noted, “Beneath his [Alinsky's] platitudes about democracy and the ‘importance and worth in the individual,’ Alinsky reveals his core goal: to ‘use power for a more equitable distribution of the means of life for all people.’ “

Sound familiar? It should because Obama said much the same thing when he told Joe the Plumber that his aim was to “spread the wealth around” through political force.

Maybe it was the camera angle or something but Obama looked small up there. Maybe they should have given him something to stand on. Or maybe it was the lighting. It may be they were shooting down at him instead of shooting up. Don't know what it is, but the guy seems to be shrinking right before our eyes. Anybody remember how small Jimmah Cartah became right before the end? Especially when Jimmah would sit in one of those big leather chairs. He looked like a little kid. It happened a little to George W as well.

Hensarling: “President Obama’s ideas have already been turned into reality, and reality is showing that they not only failed—they are making the economy worse.”

WASHINGTON – Congressman Jeb Hensarling, Chairman of the House Republican Conference, issued the following statement today in response to President Obama’s State of the Union address.

“Because the president cannot run on his record, he has turned to the politics of envy and is trying to divide America. He cloaks his class warfare rhetoric under the guise of ‘fairness,’ but what is fair about doubling-down on ideas that have already failed to revive our economy and are causing historic pain for the American people?

“Three years ago, President Obama told us that if we passed his trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ plan, his health care law, and the Dodd-Frank Act, then the economy would grow and jobs would flourish. He got his policies; America did not get the results. The president’s ideas have already been turned into reality, and reality is showing that they not only failed—they are making the economy worse.

“Almost two million more Americans have lost their jobs since President Obama took office, while the nation is stuck in the longest period of sustained high unemployment since the Great Depression. Gas prices have doubled, new business start-ups have fallen to a 17-year low, and the number of Americans relying on food stamps is at an all-time high. According to the Census Bureau, almost half the country is now living in either poverty or low income. What’s ‘fair’ about any of this?

“The president may talk about a ‘new era’ for manufacturing and the middle class, but just last week he buried 20,000 shovel-ready jobs when he disapproved of the bi-partisan, environmentally-reviewed Keystone XL energy project in order to please a segment of his base. Clearly for this administration, people still come second to politics.

“Rather noticeably, the president forgot to mention that today marked the 1,000th day since his fellow Democrats in the Senate even bothered to pass a budget. Forcing the government to operate without a budget is just one way the president and his party have taken our spending-driven debt crisis from worrisome to catastrophic.

“Without spending discipline, raising taxes will not solve our nation’s debt crisis and could seriously harm small businesses. Fairness is found not in taxing some people more but in subsidizing them less. Let’s scrap the tax loopholes. Let’s end the special interest taxpayer subsidies the president defends—like those he gave to Solyndra—and stop his administration’s bailouts.

“It’s a new year, and President Obama must begin to consider new ideas. Some have already been turned into legislation, such as the 27 bipartisan jobs bills passed under the House Republican Plan for America’s Job Creators awaiting the Democrat-run Senate’s approval. It is time for the president and his party to give our jobs crisis the priority it demands so that the American people can get the jobs and economic recovery they so desperately deserve.”

For me, the three unnoticed highlights of the State of the Union speech were when: 1.) Obama's "equal pay for equal work" line from the 1980s caused all the women in the top 1% in the audience to stand in solidarity; and 2.) seeing Warren Buffett's secretary in the audience. If only we can lower her tax rate too so she can finally afford to get out of Omaha. 3.) By tradition for the State of the Union address, one cabinet member always stays behind at the White House. As this funny YouTube video shows, one Secret Service agent also always stays behind at the Obama's family house... but with far less supervision: http://tinyurl.com/6sevqsj

Obama is the biggest wet blanket to business. His speech proves it. He gave a bit here and a bit there. then all the rules and regulations and burdens come down by the labor, justice, environmental cabinet positions. He just doesnt trust capitalists to do the job and pay the people rightly. This wont change no matter how bad the economy is. He must go. Anyone but Obama...ANYONE.

That everything wasn't mentioned directly -- an impossibility in any SOTU -- doesn't mean the unmentioned are unimportant and won't be addressed. Keystone, itself, like Solyndra, too small a project to deserve mention, was addressed (like Solyndra) in sweeping terms. President Obama has promised to remove unnecessary regulations and to increase energy production (already up from the Bush/Cheney years), but not at the expense of endangering the air, water, land and health of Americans. Solyndra was addressed under his commitment to invest in clean energy, which is our promising future. Who really wants to hear about the Israeli/Palestinian peace talks? President Obama has learned what every other American president since 1960 learned: you can lead -- with great difficulty -- two mules to water, but you can't make them drink. While Bowles/Simpson won't be embraced in its entirety, it will be President Obama who makes the challenging big offer to Congress (again) to cut another four trillion from the deficit and budget. This time, however, he will insist on getting rid of obscene tax loopholes for corporations and millionaires and will insist on tax rate reform that makes the biggest and richest pay their fair share. Future balanced budgets and national debt reduction depend on it.

Yeah bankrupt Solyndra made it into the SOTU but Keystone Pipeline's 81,000 jobs that got nixxed didn't. But Buffett's sectretary was there protecting his interests in his railway line that is going to transport the oil..... talk about ridiculous crony capitalism.

Come on. The other obvious thing that wasn't in the SOTU was Obama's own admission he failed the USA people for the first 3 years of his Presidency. 4.5 trillion to the deficit, no economic growth and highest prolonged unemployment of any POTUS in modern history?

Only weathermen don't get the blame Obama. Ask Jimmy Carter what happened in 1980.

The speech was not worth watching IMO. I've seen too many where Congress with a 9% approval rate seems to go on-and-on clapping, and standing giving credence to something that 'ain't there'. Don't want to be drawn into a non-starting feeling of hope.

Seems re-arranging lounge chairs on the U.S. Titantic does not 'gee-haw' with me.

Like many I see mere words.. and I'd rather expolore the dis-eased fruit from their lying tree. If one looks they won't find the One giving them any guidance, nor fruit. It's over with.. the sham of the left-right paradigm is exposed... Nary a difference, unless one is tweeked in the mind of flouride drowned brain cells.

I'm glad to have a well to provide me purity.. Their's is Evian water spelled backwards!

There is no middle class in socialism Mr. Obama knows that, but he will do what he can to make people believe he is a warrior for the middle class. Mr Obama's plan for the middle class put them on unemployment, tax their checks and give them food stamps. What America is blind to is his attack on the middle class ( small business) ( conservatives are in the middle class). I will even go as far to say if you polled who is in the middle class conservatives would be at about 79 percent of the middle class. The democrat and republican politicians have proven they can not save money just spend other peoples monies.

The small business my wife and I own find the people we do business with are also conservatives, we deal with over 30 vendors all conservatives and consider themselves conservative and middle class. We also found most conservatives are debt free or owe very little, and own out right all they have. But many Americans own nothing the bank owns them and what they have.

Jan.2, 2009 our debt was at 10.6 trillion ( unacceptable), Jan. 17, 2011 15.2 trillion in debt ( outrageous) and we have Americans that want 4 more years of this!!!

You can't get ahead by depending on others to make a life for you. Our schools should be teaching how to be a business owner, not how to live off others!!

Left Right Paradigm of red-herring promises, promises [insert Doine Warwick song PP here].

Where un-duped get strung along just enough.

kind-of-like a hook on the mind..

or wallet for some..

Too many, I'd say.

In the Year 2012, there was one man that tried to remind you of

the (((( Intrinsic ))) Value of Your USC.., The Bill Of Rights.

Since MSM decided to avoid his name, I'd like to say RON PAUL

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- a million times over!

IMO, All Ye who choose less will certainly get less. Actually, You confirm continued demise and YOU should never view that as American Exceptionalism.

What I'm saying is this: For some, it takes 50 years to find truth [ pre internet ] , for others you've been able to research truths.. [ Internet before Lobbied Change orders on docket] . Means one should figure-it-out faster than 50 years old. So how old are You and what is your analysis so far? Have You been jolted into a blackholeconcept of reality.. Or are You truly Exceptional, or are those just feel-good words to string-YOU-along?

It's not a free-ride.. You've got to use logic, reason, common sense

So What Gives? Just srting-right-along, then left, then right.. in grouped formation as you can'tsee your very own shoes in the crowd, thereby, not seeing the Cliff nearby. O Ye of Exceptionalistic Ways, you've not duped me yet. [ enter Helen Ready song, I am Woman ] .

Nope! I'm a Man.. [enter James Brown I't s man's world here]

Just for fun---This is about Your future is the reality.. The FACADE is that the left-right has difference, other than tweeked nuances. get with it..

Break-up MSM 5-sensory missiles aimed at your mind..

Understand the purpose of their stimulus, train YOUR response... Climb-OUT of the BLACKBOX!

He didn't mention the debt and after his "set of facts" concerning housing, he didn't mention the CRA, the root cause of it. He spoke in condesending tones and stoked class warfare. He DID BLAME BUSH AGAIN for the bad economy "those are the facts".

Check it out Glenn, I'm sorry, Mr. Beck, the only class warfare is the war on the middle class and we've just about lost. Wealth redistribution has been in full swing for thirty(30) years, but it is only an issue if we take anything from the rich. Hows that "trickle down" theory working? I believe we've been trickled on for long enough now. Let's redistribute the wealth from defense contractors and put it in the clean energy contractors pockets...whats wrong with that? No rich people are harmed that way...you could get behind that huh?